The present invention relates to an intake unit used for a drawing device such as a drawer, sliding unit, and so on.
The intake unit to be used for a conventional drawing device such as a drawer, sliding unit, and so on has employed a structure to let a long-sized rack gear be engaged with a pinion gear to control the rotation of the above-mentioned pinion gear by a rotary damper mechanism.
If employing a structure to use a rack gear and pinion gear to convert to a rotary movement from a linear movement of a movement member movably supported to a basic substrate of a drawing device, there are following two methods. One is a method in which the long-sized rack gear 22 is attached to the side of the movement member 2, the rotary damper 4 is attached to the fixed side (basic substrate 12) to let the gearwheel 20 provided on the rotary portion of the rotary damper 4 be engaged with the tooth portion of the above-mentioned rack gear 22 as shown in FIGS. 17 and 18. The other is a method to attach the long-sized rack gear to the fixed side (basic substrate side), and attach the rotary damper to the movement member to let the gearwheel provided on the rotary portion of the rotary damper be engaged with the tooth of the above-mentioned rack gear. (for example, refer to Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. H5-317133).
FIGS. 17 and 18, and FIGS. 19 and 20 show a conventional device which employed the second method.
In FIG. 17, the reference numeral 2 is a movement member 2, numeral 4 is a rotary damper mounted on the movement member, numeral 12 is a basic substrate, numerals 14 and 16 are support blocks to fix the basic substrate 12 to the drawer of drawing device or the bottom plate of the external box and numeral 18 is a coil spring movably supported by the basic substrate 12 to urge the movement member 2 toward the opposite support block 14 in the longitudinal direction of the basic substrate 12. On the rotary side of the rotary damper 4 whose axis side was fixed to the movement member 2, the gearwheel 20 is securely installed and the foregoing gearwheel 20 is engaged with the rack gear 22 on the basic substrate 12. Numeral 24 is a slider movably supporting the engagement member 26 formed with the first and second engagement portions 8 and 10, and is slidably attached to the basic the basic substrate 12 and connected to the movement member 2. In FIG. 19, numeral 28 is a holding body which is securely installed in the gearwheel 20 and supports the engagement member 26 at the right angle to the mounted position of the rotary damper 4 in the movement direction of the movement member 2 of the unit. The structure other than mentioned above is the same as that of the conventional device shown in FIG. 17.
In the structure of above-mentioned conventional device, when the drawer is pulled out from the external box, the movement member 2 is moved to the right end of the basic substrate 12 in the drawing against the springing force of the spring 18 and is locked in the foregoing position with a locking means (not illustrated). If pushing the drawer toward the back of the external box by hand from the condition in which the drawer is pulled out from the external box, the projection portion 6 is engaged with the 1st engagement portion 8, the pressing force to the first engagement portion 8 of the projection portion 6 releases the locked conditions to the movement member 2, and the movement member 2 is moved leftward by the springing force of the spring 18 along the basic substrate 12 in the drawing. At this time, the projection portion 6 is engaged with the second engagement portion 10 to transfer the movement force on the movement member 2 side by the springing force of the spring 18 to the drawer, which is pulled in toward the back side of the external box by the springing force. For the movement of the movement member 2 by the springing force of the spring 18 along the basic substrate 12, the braking force by the rotation damper 4 is applied to the movement of the movement member 2, which causes the drawer to be slowly pulled in toward the back side without quick action.
If the first method is employed, since the movement member 2 is moved with the long-sized rack gear 22 mounted as shown in FIG. 16, the intake unit becomes extremely long-sized along the movement direction of the above-mentioned movement direction to have to be large-sized.
Meanwhile, if the second method is employed, the movement member 2 will move with the rotary damper 4 mounted on the movement route formed with the basic substrate 12 as shown in FIGS. 17 and 19. In this case, in this movement member 2, the movement member 2 needs to be provided with the first engagement portion 8 which can be engaged with the projection portion 6 in one movement route, which is provided in the above movement member 2 as protruding in the movement route for the projection portion 6 provided in the pulled-in member, and second engagement portion 10 which can be engaged in movement routes in other directions. Depending on the position where the rotary damper 4 is mounted on the movement member 2, as the conventional device shown in FIG. 16, the above-mentioned first engagement portion 8 and the second engagement portion 10 have to be placed as protruding at the right angle (width direction) to the above-mentioned rotary damper 4 mounting position and the movement direction of the above-mentioned movement member 2, and/or in the movement direction X of the above-mentioned movement member 2, or at the right angle Y (thickness direction) to the above-mentioned movement member 2 as shown in FIGS. 19 and 20.
If the above-mentioned first engagement portion 8 and second engagement portion 10 are placed at the right angled (width direction) to the above-mentioned rotary type damper mounted position and the above-mentioned movement member 2 movement direction, the direction, that is the size in the width direction of the intake device becomes larger, causing the entire device size to be larger in the result. In addition, if the above-mentioned first engagement portion 8 and second engagement portion 10 are placed at the right angle (Y) (thickness direction) to the above-mentioned rotary damper 4 mounted position, a space needs to be provided in the thickness direction. In addition, particularly if the above-mentioned first engagement portion and second engagement portion are placed at the right angle (d) (width direction) to the above-mentioned rotary damper mounted position and the movement direction of the above-mentioned movement member, or if placed at the right angle (Y) of the device (thickness direction), the device will occupy a space throughout a range of movement.
After all, either in the first method or second method, if the structure using a rack gear and a pinion gear is employed, a space to be occupied by the intake unit will become larger and the size of the intake unit has to be large-sized entirely.
In case that this intake device is assembled and produced from the design stage of a drawing device such a drawer, sliding door, and so on, even if a space to be occupied by the intake device is larger, design can be performed and such a big problem will not be arisen. However, if attaching an intake unit to a drawer, sliding door, and so on which were already completed, that is, if an intake device is regarded as a unit itself, a space where an intake device unit is placed in the completed drawer, sliding door, and so on is limited, and there are many cases of insufficient placement space for an intake device. In these cases, it is impossible even to assemble an intake device unit.
The present invention has an object to miniaturize the intake unit as much as possible and to greatly increase the possibility to assemble it into a ready-made drawer, sliding door, and so on in order to solve the above-mentioned problems.